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The man nodded and left, and now all Myles had to do was sit and wait patiently as he watched his plan succeed.
* * *
Astrid walked along the garden wall, her hand trailing along the vines that met her on the way. Flynn had left for the O’Donnely castle in the morning after she had tried her best to take him to her bedchamber. She had been missing his kisses for days now and wished for nothing more than to sit on his lap and feel all of him as she kissed him the way they had passionately kissed when locked in the library.
Flynn had promised her that as much as he wanted just that, he would still not take her virginity before their wedding. He was not certain about her father’s agreement and did not wish for any problems to arise between them. Hence, even though she had continued kissing him, he had eventually broken away from her and left.
“I miss him,” she whispered to herself, unable to believe that she had fallen so deeply in love that now she missed him when he was not here. The idea was absurd to her but very real as well, since she could see that he loved her just as much if not more.
As she continued walking, she thought she saw a rabbit move a little up ahead of her and wondered where it could have come from. Since Flynn had surprised her with a kitten today, she smiled, wondering if this could be yet another surprise from him. Without thinking much further, she chased after it until she had climbed over the garden wall and was out of the castle with no one in sight near her.
She looked around but could see nothing at all, and she realized that she must have been mistaken. “I should head back,” she said to herself before quickly making her way back towards the garden wall.
Just as Astrid was about to climb back inside the castle, she heard quick, hasty footsteps behind her, and a cloth was pulled over her head. Her gaze was plunged into total darkness, and she felt a string go around her neck, constricting her airways. She did not know what was happening at all, but she tried to shout, belatedly realizing her voice had been muffled by a hand over her mouth.
“Help,” she shouted through the cloth, knowing it was pointless, as someone held her hands and feet, completely restricting all movement, making it impossible for her to break free.
Before she could have thought of anything else to do, a faint noise cutting through the air reached her ears just as she felt a throbbing pain in her skull. Something had hit her head.
The pain exploded in her head, making her feel as if she had lost all ability to breathe, think, or keep her eyes open. As she struggled through the haze quickly overtaking her, she only knew one thing for certain: she had been kidnapped, and if it was done by the very person who had taken her brother, she had no chance of being found.
* * *
“Astrid, please wake up, me dear.”
She could hear someone calling out her name as her mind finally woke up, much faster than her eyes had. Her vision was still clouded in complete darkness as she wondered to whom this unfamiliar voice belonged. Who was this person, and how did he know her name?
As she slowly opened her eyes, the bright light in the room was enough to blind her, and she immediately placed a hand over her eyes, wishing for her vision to return to normal. Everything was blurred, and all she could feel was cold, hard stone under her.
Where am I?
Her thoughts had returned to her, and she knew she had been kidnapped. The unfamiliarity of the sounds and scents around her was enough to tell her she was not home. Despite that, she felt safe. The stranger calling out to her felt familiar.
Several minutes passed before she finally opened her eyes again, the scent of decay and staleness flooding her nostrils. She had never been to a place that smelled this rotten before. Astrid did not know who had kidnapped her, but she knew for certain that she was kidnapped.
“Astrid,” the familiar voice called out to her again, and she quickly rubbed her eyes, blinking several times to see as clearly as possible.
As she opened her eyes, bright golden hair met her gaze, hair much similar to her own and eyes that looked familiar. The only difference was the fact that the man sporting the golden hair and those familiar eyes had left her life as a young boy and had now reentered a man. An extremely handsome young man who had ten hard years written over every inch of his face.
Astrid stood up from her position on the ground, realizing she was no longer tied down but free to move, then sat down. She watched the man who looked more like her than anyone else ever had, and tears she had not even realized she had began rolling down her cheeks.
Aiden was sitting in front of her. Her brother. A brother she had lost ten years ago and had lost all hope of ever finding or meeting again. A brother she had mourned all these years. A brother who had been so much more than that to her and had left a heart-shaped hole in her body when he had exited their lives unwillingly.
“Aiden,” she whispered, unable to stop the tears.
She did not even care about them anymore. All she knew was that there was a man in front of her, a man who was none other than her big brother.
“Ye recognize me?” Aiden asked disbelievingly, as if he had not hoped that Astrid would ever recognize him.
She realized he might have never seen his face in a mirror before and did not even know that the two of them looked extremely similar.
“If ye dinnae ken what ye look like, I can assure ye me face is the perfect reflection of yers. Even now, ye and I look the same. Yer just a more masculine version of me,” she whispered through the tears, raising her hands to touch his face.
As soon as she touched him, she could no longer control herself and broke down into sobs, crying uncontrollably in front of him. She was not embarrassed one bit when he gathered her up in his arms and hugged her small frame against his, the two crashing into one another as only two siblings who have not seen each other in the last ten years would.
“Astrid, I cannae believe it is ye in front of me. I had lost all hope of ever meeting ye again,” Aiden sobbed, and they did not separate from one another.
“I had lost all hope too, Brother. We had all lost hope. Faither mourned for ye every day, and so did I, and so did Keira. We fought ten years for ye, Aiden, ten years, without even realizing when the wars had ceased to be about ye and became about general enmity with the MacKie clan. We missed ye every day and hoped that ye would return, but as days turned into months and months into years, all hope faded from me body. I didnae ken what to believe anymore.”
